I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

And Now Google Sues Apple

As Anthony points out, Google is now suing Apple over patents that it says are owned by the newly acquired Motorola Mobility. Given that we are rapidly reaching the lawsuit horizon, where everybody has or is suing everyone else, we might actually end up with a sensible clarification of the law on what patents are actually valid and how. We certainly need this to happen, for there to be a sorting out.

We’ve Apple suing Samsung in certain parts of the world over design patents: essentially concerning the look and feel of products, not the specific manner in which they work. Apple has managed to get certain Samsung products banned from sale in certain territories, failed in others. We’ve Samsung suing Apple in the US over certain standards essential patents. Effectively Apple says that as Samsung won’t license them on the agreed reasonable and non-discriminatory terms then Apple ain’t gonna pay nuttin’ No Sir!

Motorola has already sued Apple over similar standards based patents. Now the new suit is over non=essential patents. As Anthony says, this is significantly different:

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google/Motorola is alleging that Apple has infringed on seven of its patents, none of which are standard-essential. This distinction is important. As FOSS Patents explains, “The announcement comes six days before the target date for a final decision on the ITC investigation of Motorola’s first ITC complaint against Apple (July 23). A preliminary ruling by an ITC judge held Apple to infringe only one of Motorola’s asserted patents, which is a standard-essential one that raises competition issues and is, therefore, less likely to result in an actual import ban.”

If a patent is deemed to be “essential” to an “industry standard,” then, as Tim Cook told Walt Mossberg, there is just “an economic argument” about how much licensees have to pay the patent holder, but courts rarely grant injunctions for standard-essential patents.

On non-essential patents import bans can be and indeed are sometimes enforced. Indeed, Apple is asking for such a ban on Samsung products. And Google is asking for such a ban on Apple products. Just for those who don’t know this, Samsung’s products run Google’s Android operating system which brings us full circle in this group suing each other.

The thing that interests me most in all of this though is how much it has cost Google to be able to do this. The headline price for Motorola Mobility was $12.5 billion. Which we might think is a pretty high price to pay for a loss making handset maker and a few patents. Even the ability to entirely nail Apple (if they can) is expensive at that price. However, as it was pointed out to me when they made the purchase, that’s not actually the real price to Google of this wonderful opportunity to attack Apple. That’s more like $3.8 billion.

For Motorola had a series of accumulated tax losses which can be set against future Google profits. Thus lowering considerably the real as opposed to headline costs. Plus, of course, there’s the potential to collect royalties on these patents being asserted (assuming they are successfully so asserted) and the opportunity to nail Apple seems to come almost for free. At least, in this rarefied world of large telecoms companies, where a $billion here or there seems to be a rounding error.

As I noted at the start my main hope is that once everyone has sued everyone, all the appeals courts have had their say, then the law on patents, who can do what with them, should be much clearer. That’s what we all might get out of it of course. But along the way we might get some interesting diversions: for example, it’s actually possible that Apple won’t get Samsung kit banned from the US but Google might get Apple kit so banned. And wouldn’t that be fun? Very much the biter bit that would be.

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I am sorry, Apple needs to know it off? Let’s put this in simple basic terms: If you invent a cure for cancer, you spent billions of dollars on research, legal fees, patenting the cure, and marketing, and then everyone steals your cure without paying you. Question: What would you do – just let it slide OR would you take legal action? If you are honest, you would take them to court. So, how is what Apple doing different?? Do not be such a moron and assume that Apple is the bad guy because they are protecting their intelligential property and the billions of dollars they invested.

Don’t be such a moron and assume that Samsung is the bad guy for attempting to make a lower cost alternative phone for intelligent people who don’t become easily swayed by Apple’s crowd pleasing marketing tactics.

“stop litigating and start innovating”? The entire purpose of patents is to incentivize and protect innovation. All that means nothing if you don’t protect your patents. And it isn’t like Apple is patent trolling: they were actually the first ones to come out with all this technology. Meanwhile, Google bought an entire company for the purpose of patent trolling!

“The best defense is a good offense”? Please. Google’s lawsuit is all bark and no bite. All the key patents to touchscreens are owned by Apple because THEY innovated them. How did you zoom in on text before the iphone? Oh wait, that’s right, you didn’t. Google’s best attempt at “innovation” was a blatant copy, and now they’re running for hills while trying to fire off some warning shots into the air. Brin and Page better make sure that shareholder lawsuit doesn’t upend their control over the company, because they’re about to get run over.

I am tired of the lawsuits left and right that have become norm and expected in this industry, and many others. It should be recognized that most designs and technological advances come from copying one design and improving on it. Cars, computers, phones, software, hardware, etc… Everything starts with someone having an idea, building it, and someone else coming along using it, examining it, and improving on the shortcomings.

While it may be argued by Apple fans that Android is not an improvement on the software, or that the thousands + of handsets that have come around since the advent of the iPhone are not improvements on the “perfect phone” (different argument), it can be seen by some as shortcomings that have been filled in. There is enough of a difference in these items that it offers a competitive option for those that fall into a different group than those using Apple products. And this is how true competition should exist. It forces each company to reinvent and improve and it prevents the technology from becoming stale.

I don’t see Goodyear and Michelin suing each other because the other copied the black circular design, or has a tread pattern and rubber compound similar to the other. It’s not like they are taking the same product and relabeling it and selling as their own.

I hope Google has a victory with it’s suits and manages to stick it back to Apple. I would like to see this petty suit business go away and the industry start competing with products and innovations instead of suing each other out of the market.

Agree’d that the specific chemicals/compounds in the “Cancer drug” could be patented and the creator(s) should be entitled to royalties, however they should get absolutely no credit at all for the shape of a pill, which is one of their main arguments. It’s absolute rediculousness that any person in their right mind would have even allowed this claim to be made. Our phone is rectangular shaped with rounded corners, so nobody else can do it, it is our design, we invented round corners and the rectangle. Please… Apple just needs to crawl under a rock and rot away.